for Kristin Dykstra
I blame my father’s father and my mother blames my mother’s father and my father blames my father’s mother and my father’s mother blames my mother’s mother’s father but mostly I blame my father’s father and my mother’s mother and my mother and my father for procreating
What the fuck were they thinking
Some words stand for some things and other words stand for other things
Or all the words are empty or unavailable.
They wrap my body in a flag
They spit on me
They talk about my mother
They blame my mother for making me
They blame my mother for making me a pansy
They call my mother a whore
They call me the son of a whore
They call my father a son of a bitch
I have a memory of my grandfather on stilts in a backyard
I am six years old
I remember laughing with the children as we ran up to the man on stilts
It’s possible this is a cheap trick my mind is playing on me to make him much taller than everyone else
I remember a warm man a full head of gray hair slicked back over thick square glasses
He knew the president
He had been friends with the president
He formed the party with the president
He started the revolution with the president
My mother met the president at a cocktail party
Too bourgeois?
My mother met the president at an ice cream social
It was a fundraiser for the revolution
They didn’t drink wine
They wished they could have drunk wine
They wanted the revolution to have wine but they were afraid that those who could not afford wine would not join the revolution
All the poor people who can’t afford wine will soon be able to afford wine brother
The revolution will guarantee wine for everyone
Let me explain
The president was a nice man
The president offered my mother a job
He said When you finish law school join the revolution
He offered her a job with the revolution
My mother was not a Jedi but she knew how to use the force
You will give me a job when I finish law school my mother said to the president
And the president repeated I will give you a job when you finish law school
I do not use the force but I am force-sensitive
My mother said you will give me a job when I finish law school
And the president said yes I will give you a job if they don’t shoot me first
He was fatalistic
He was kind
He was a quote-un-quote philanderer
Some say he was a great politician
Others say he was a lousy politician
Others think he was ethically dubious because he had sex with young revolutionaries
But then they dropped a bomb on his ass
He killed himself before they shot him
They dropped a bomb on his house
They dropped a bomb on his house but he killed himself before his house went up in flames and now the people pay 25% interest to the capitalist administrators who make a beautiful commission from their privatized social security earnings
This is what Margaret Thatcher meant when she said economics are the method the object is to change the heart and soul
I can explain the politically neutral discourse of neoliberal policy
If they wouldn’t have dropped a bomb on some guy on the other side of the world then we wouldn’t live in a city with privatized sidewalks parks beaches nurses teachers trees weeds squirrels ducks coyotes
I am trying to convince you not to sell my body on the global market
I am trying to convince you that it’s not my fault I was born into a family of communists
Have you seen the way they made my grandfather grovel
There’s a movie about this
It’s on Vimeo and YouTube and Netflix and Amazon Prime
It’s called The Groveling Communists
It stars Gael García Bernal and Penélope Cruz and the prisoners are wretched and good looking
It’s about ten communist prisoners on a frigid island who crawl around freezing dying of hypothermia trying to teach each other foreign languages in order to keep their brains from rotting of atrophy
It’s about ten communist prisoners on a frigid island who crawl around in the mud and barracks going grovel grovel grovel
I can explain
My mom was like yo president it would be great if you could give me a JOB after I finish law school and the president was like yeah girl no problem I’ll give you a JOB if they don’t fucking kill me before you graduate
My father’s father was a revolutionary
But they excommunicated him from the party
Or he excommunicated himself from the party
It’s complicated
He was besties with the president played ball with the president when they were in high school went out drinking with the president when they were in college wrote revolutionary treatises with the president over bottles of wine and cigarettes
But then they had an argument
It’s complicated
Like really geopolitically complicated
Sort of
The party loved nation A in a faraway land but my grandfather did not like nation A because nation A wanted to kill the people of nation B and the party (though they did not believe in violence) were not fans of the people of nation B and they supported the people of nation A in their {impossible} quest to wipe nation B off the planet
The president liked nation A my grandfather liked nation B
They fell out over this
My grandfather was written out of the revolution and started walking around on stilts to impress his nephews and grandchildren
He practiced peace but had little interest in peace
He practiced free love but had little interest in free love
He practiced law but had little interest in law
He practiced poetry but had little interest in poetry
SMILEY FACE EMOJI KISSY FACE EMOJI TONGUE HANGING OUT OF MY MOUTH EMOJI
I am radically resignifying traumatic memory in a diasporic space in order to create opportunities for new bonds to be articulated beyond the traumas of dictatorship
Dude
I fetishize the past I did not live
I fetishize the future I cannot control
I fetishize the practical impossibilities of the present
The frozen lilacs the burning earth the human beings scorched and traded for oil
I cannot explain those things
But I can explain other things
The rain is beating on the windows and it really sounds quite pretty
No one will wait for me when I turn into ash and dust
When I am lonely and have no one to talk to I will remember the murmuring leaves